Hot Docs 2025 - King Matt The First Review

 

Jasmina Wójcik’s fundamentally personal and thoughtful documentary is an inherently welcome addition to the Hot Docs programme. Last seen at the fest in 2019 with Symphony of The Ursus Factory (which took home the award for Best Mid-Length Feature that year), she returns to the festival with King Matt The First. The film follows Wójcik’s two daughters, Zoja and Lea, as they deal with online school, post-pandemic structures, and the ever-evolving world around them–- at times, through the lens of a century-old (1922), seminal Polish novel which shares the same name as the film.

Over 75 minutes, Wójcik explores various landscapes, the most prominent being a beautiful green area where the daughters go to pick berries and beans, discover music, and discuss their feelings on life (sometimes death, the afterlife, and beyond). All of these individual moments culminate to create a timeless and archivable document, one that speaks to how children are experiencing life in 2025 as well as how they view the future. More often than not, it’s an incredibly moving experience; one that had my eyes feeling misty multiple times. 

The middle of the film explores these landscapes in a much chillier tone: the surrounding areas are covered with snow, leading to snowball fights and other creative uses (one scene that involves throwing snowballs off the bridge into the river while screaming sticks out to me). As the film progresses, it begins diving into childhood reactions to past/contemporary politics, assisted by the novel King Henry The First. There are strong, artistic battle cries towards anti-war ethics and the “unconscious” perspective of a child. This juxtaposition is strong and accompanied by slow motion shots and piercing sound design that effectively nails the tone it’s going for. 

Most of all, it’s a viscerally involved and nostalgic portrait of life as a youth that isn’t afraid to tug at your heartstrings with how involved it gets within this family’s life. It’s a rare treat to watch a film so empathetic and genuinely curious. 

Hot Docs 2025 concluded today, May 4th. You can look at their upcoming year-round events at hotdocs.ca.